1833 — “Allah created the soil on Saturday; He created the mountains in it on Sunday; He created the trees on Monday; He created unpleasant things on Tuesday; He created light on Wednesday; He spread the creatures throughout it on Thursday; and He created Adam after mid-afternoon on Friday—the last of creation—in the last hour of Friday, between mid-afternoon and nightfall.”

Ibn Maʿīn recorded it in al-Tārīkh wa al-ʿIlal (9/1, manuscript; no. 210, printed edition), and Ibn Mandah in al-Tawḥīd (25/2), through Ibn Jurayj, who said: Ismāʿīl ibn Umayyah informed me, from Ayyūb ibn Khālid, from ʿAbd Allāh ibn Rāfiʿ, the freedman of Umm Salamah, from Abū Hurayrah, may Allah be pleased with him, who said: The Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him, took my hand and said: Then he mentioned it.

Muslim recorded it in his Ṣaḥīḥ (8/127) through this route, as did al-Thaqafī in al-Thaqafiyyāt (4/29/2), al-Dūlābī (1/175), and al-Bayhaqī in al-Asmāʾ wa al-Ṣifāt (pp. 275–276). Al-Bayhaqī reported that some of the leading hadith scholars deemed it weak, and that Ibn al-Madīnī identified a defect in it, maintaining that Ismāʿīl ibn Umayyah had taken it from Ibrāhīm ibn Abī Yaḥyā, who in turn had taken it from Ayyūb ibn Khālid. He meant that this Ibrāhīm was abandoned.

I say: This is an unsupported assertion, based on mere opinion; a narration from Ismāʿīl ibn Umayyah cannot be rejected on such grounds. For he is trustworthy and firmly reliable, as al-Ḥāfiẓ stated in al-Taqrīb—especially since he was corroborated. Abū Yaʿlā recorded it in his Musnad (288/1) through Ḥajjāj ibn Muḥammad, from Ayyūb ibn Khālid, from ʿAbd Allāh ibn Rāfiʿ, with the same report. Yet perhaps something was omitted from its chain of transmission.

Al-Bukhārī mentioned it as a suspended report in the biographical entry for Ayyūb ibn Khālid ibn Abī Ayyūb al-Anṣārī, from Ismāʿīl ibn Umayyah, with this same report. He said (1/1/413–414): “Some said: from Abū Hurayrah, from Kaʿb; and this is sounder!”

I say: This is like the preceding claim: who are these “some,” and what is their standing in accuracy and retention that their narration should be preferred over that of ʿAbd Allāh ibn Rāfiʿ? Al-Nasāʾī and Ibn Ḥibbān declared him trustworthy, and Muslim relied upon him,